As Cobra's order fell,
the guards at his side swiftly charged at Vikengam and his group.
The two men in the lead, who looked like guard captains in their fifties, transformed as they ran.
By the time they passed through the royal mausoleum gates, one had taken the form of a jackal, while the other soared into the air with the bearing of a falcon.
There was no doubt that both of them were Zoan-type Devil Fruit users!
"Rebels, surrender your lives!"
"You dare offend the royal family? You have chosen death!"
But before the two of them could even get close to Vikengam's group, a biting chill suddenly erupted and swept past them in an instant.
In the blink of an eye, the two Zoan users had become ice sculptures, frozen in place beneath the scorching sun.
At the same time, every member of the Alabasta royal guard who charged in after them was frozen solid. Only Cobra, still riding his camel and unable to stop in time, slipped on the ice and went rolling head over heels.
A moment later, Cobra slid miserably to the side of the icy sun-shaped throne Vikengam was sitting on and angrily demanded, "Who are you people!?"
"Hey, hey, don't freeze them all to death," Roger said as he watched. "After all, we are kind of in the wrong here..."
Roger was not truly a good man, but neither was he a complete brute. As a pirate, he had led the Roger Pirates in countless raids; that was beyond dispute.
Though battles with powerful enemies might have affected innocent people, and there was no excusing that, the Roger Pirates did have one very strict rule: they would never deliberately rob civilians or nobles recognized by civilians.
In the original story, after Kozuki Oden joined the Roger Pirates, he once robbed civilians on an island. Gaban had sternly warned him that if Captain Roger found out he had robbed civilians, Roger would definitely teach him a harsh lesson.
But when they later discovered that those people were not civilians but a group of villains, the matter was dropped.
Still, that made it clear that Roger's ship truly had such rules.
What Vikengam had said about Alabasta's history and the Nefertari Family, along with what they had seen throughout this desert kingdom, made Roger feel that this royal family, which often proposed abolishing the Heavenly Tribute system, should be a good one. He did not wish to hurt them.
"Don't worry. I'm just cooling them off a little. They won't die," Vikengam replied casually.
Then he rose to his feet. Rather than looking at Cobra, he walked over to the ice sculptures of the jackal and falcon with great interest and said, "Legend has it that, beginning more than four thousand years ago, the great Jackal God and Falcon God have protected the Kingdom of Alabasta to this day..."
At the same time, Cobra seemed to recognize them. Shock and anger filled his eyes as he said, "You're the Roger Pirates? Why have scum like you come to Alabasta?"
Clearly, no one wanted to pay him any attention. Roger and the others continued digging, while Shakky, who had been fanning Rayleigh, asked curiously, "More than four thousand years ago? Are you saying these two Zoan users have lived that long? That can't be possible, right?"
"Of course not." Vikengam shook his head.
As he remembered it, the later users of the jackal and falcon powers were Pell and Chaka. Clearly, judging from the current situation, the people he had frozen were the previous generation of users.
Yet Alabasta's legend had persisted for thousands of years and was widely accepted. Combined with what stood before them now, that was quite interesting.
Everyone knew that after a Devil Fruit user died, the Devil Fruit would be "reborn" somewhere in the world.
Yet Alabasta had always retained the jackal and falcon powers. What did that mean? It meant they might possess a special technique for stably passing down Devil Fruit powers!
"Does your Nefertari Family possess some special ancient technique? Something capable of controlling the stable inheritance of certain Devil Fruits?" Vikengam asked, turning to Cobra, who was struggling to rise from the ice.
"You think I'll answer you?" Cobra snapped.
"Tch, you brat sure are arrogant. Can't you see the situation you're in? Believe it or not, if I get annoyed, I'll freeze them all to death?" Vikengam said, looking at Cobra.
He was already in his early twenties, so calling Cobra a brat was perfectly reasonable.
But just then, Roger drove his shovel through the thick layer of sand, revealing hard stone beneath it. Rayleigh immediately smashed through that stone with a hoe, and then a dark underground opening appeared before them.
"Oh! We broke through! There really is something here!" Roger shouted excitedly.
If not for the fact that this was someone else's ancestral tomb, and that excessive destruction might collapse the underground palace, Roger and the others could have blasted straight through it with a casual attack.
Without wasting any time, Roger was the first to jump down. Before Vikengam could stop him, Gaban followed him in.
"Hey, wait!" Vikengam shouted. "It's dangerous!"
Sure enough, the underground palace had been sealed for hundreds of years. The state of its air was easy to imagine. The moment Roger and Gaban landed, they took two breaths and immediately felt dizzy and lightheaded, as though they were about to faint.
Only after Rayleigh heard Vikengam's explanation did he quickly find a way to fan fresh air inside, easing the rather awkward situation.
A few minutes later, Vikengam and the others went down as well, bringing along Cobra, who was equally astonished that there was an underground palace here.
In truth, the kings of the Nefertari Family passed down the secret of this place from generation to generation. But Cobra's father was still in his prime, and Cobra, a fourteen-year-old prince, had not yet reached the age to learn of it. That was why he had been so puzzled by the mysterious underground palace beneath the royal cemetery.
Soon, the group lit lamps, passed through the underground palace's complex tunnels, and reached its depths.
There, sure enough, stood a Poneglyph.
"What is this!?" Cobra stared at the Poneglyph in shock.
"It records some secrets from eight hundred years ago. Your Nefertari Family has been privately keeping this thing, which already counts as violating World Government law..." Vikengam said as he walked up to the Poneglyph and carefully studied the Ancient Language carved upon it.
"Eight hundred years ago? A Poneglyph?" Cobra froze for a moment.
Clearly, he was not completely ignorant. As the heir to one of humanity's oldest kingdoms, he naturally received relevant education in history.
And the education of Nefertari Family heirs contained some... secrets of its own.
"What does it say? Is there any valuable information?" Roger asked, closing his eyes as if trying to listen for something.
But his Voice of All Things did not work every time. Otherwise, in the original story, there would have been no need to specifically seek out Kozuki Oden for help.
Vikengam looked at the writing, his expression solemn as he translated, "It was a masterpiece created by countless skilled craftsmen, a weapon of war forged in Water 7, and a new power we used to oppose the terrifying weapon Uranus. We called it 'Pluton—Pluto.' It may have been the most terrifying warship in this world. Its power was in no way inferior to the Uranus possessed by Laugh Tale. A single strike could make a massive island vanish entirely from this world. But back then, we focused only on building this warship and overlooked the threat it might pose to the world.
"And now, someone has clearly set his sights on Pluton's power. It is that traitor!
"We were once all companions who defeated Davy D. Jones together, yet now the traitor wants to seize the fruits of victory. But the temptation of power has blinded many of our former companions, who chose to stand at his side. I no longer know whom I can trust. Perhaps Lily can be trusted? No, there is also the Kozuki Family. I think that after we fail, the traitors will soon bury us in history. That is why we created these stone tablets to record the current situation. Pluton truly possesses terrifying power. I originally wanted to destroy it completely, but considering Uranus's disappearance, perhaps hiding this power away for the future is also an option?
"Leave it in Wano Country—Joy Boy."
Before you continue